ATR

From the composition Homeostasis on Subject to Change, Henry Threadgill Sextet, About Time Records. Recitation by Pheeroan ak Laff.

The possible elaborations are indeed infinite and without end.

Today I listened to the small orchestra versions followed by the original trio improvisations in this order: They Rode for Them Parts 1&2, I'll See You Out There, Splatter, Cracked Roses, Ride the Wind, RUB, Frenzy House, Shards and Lemons, Who Dat. I read the liner notes to get more of an idea of the orchestration process. These aren't what I would call transcriptions or arrangements, although the process included transcription and orchestration. The principle contact points are the titles of the pieces. As you know, the pieces are even radically different in length from the improvised to 'composed' version. I did hear some echoes of the improvisations in the larger ensemble versions, but as I said I found them more different than alike. What comes across most strongly is the sense that whatever Roscoe Mitchell is doing is worth hearing and that there is a community of musicians who have the ability and desire to translate his music into other settings and situations. The orchestral arrangements for both Discussions and Ride the Wind were created by the same working group, although each album has its own distinct sound and identity. Some of this is due to the fact that these are performed by two different musical groups with different instrumentation and also that the recorded sound on the Wide Hive release Discussions seems more warm and reverberant. That's not necessarily better. Prospective listeners need to know that neither disc contains exclusively orchestrations of the compositions from Conversations I and II, and that there are further orchestrations that remain to be recorded. What was most rewarding to me personally was taking the opportunity to listen more carefully to all four of these recordings. There are no duplications, and as I said there are still more orchestrations waiting to be recorded from what I read. In addition, both discs have additional tracks that are not derived from the Conversations I & II albums.

Probably from me, sadly. I'll try to come up with a new one but this one always works. And if not from me, I'll swear that every word of my version actually happened. This brings me to a story I heard about Cecil Taylor and Sonny Rollins I heard about the time of CT's birthday last month. Sonny went to see him in a club. Afterwards Sonny told him that he didn't understand what Cecil was doing but he knew enough to know that Cecil did and so he should just keep on doing it.

I took a version of this class taught by Willie Ruff. At the time I was dismissive of what Miles was playing, early 70's, which I deeply regret now. Miles had the Agharta band in town and I didn't go. Ruff showed a movie in the class of Tony Williams playing trap set in the middle of a clearing somewhere in Africa. He explained to us that music is a form of communication and in Africa drummers play the news of their village to the next village like a telegraph. He told us that following Tony's performance surrounding villages answered. The message back was 'We don't exactly understand what you said but we dug it'. I got a good grade in the class even though I cut the Miles Davis performance. I did catch Weather Report, Larry Coryell, and Mahavishnu Orchestra. Cut to many years later and my nephew Will is at Bard and tells me he's taking the intro jazz history class there, which I'm figuring must be taught by some mouldy fig. Turns out it was Thurman Barker. Damn.

I did a half way job of it. Put all four discs in the player and let it rip. I'm not sure it's possible even programming the player to A/B the specific improvisation followed by its analogous composition that you would hear anything near what you expect. Which is maybe what the point of doing these orchestral projects was. I'm going to try A/B'ing and stopping short of going nuts. I think it's best done in small doses. Maybe reverse the order of creation and listen to the composed version first, since that's kind of a blow up diagram of the improvisation.

Have any reviewers listened sequentially to the improvisations on Wide Hive followed by the orchestral arrangements on Discussions and Ride the Wind, and discussed the arrangements with that in mind? All this reviewer does is define what would be for him a successful attempt at this project and then simply dismisses it as unsuccessful. To his credit, he does drop the names of a few significant twentieth century classical composers.

What? The SACD is MoFi's remastering. I presume that MoFi remastered from a correct speed tape. I can't recall exactly how the speed was corrected for the '97 release, whether it involved running the tape at a different speed or using a safety copy that was correct speed. There are two different considerations here. One is what the source tape was and the second is whether a new master was created from the source tape. In the case of the MoFi release the answer is that a new master was created from the source tape.

The Mofi disc is remastered. I would assume that it is speed corrected but cannot confirm. https://www.discogs.com/Miles-Davis-Kind-Of-Blue/release/7113132

I have the box and the Bootleg Series Volume 4 Live 1996 "Royal Albert Hall" Concert. I don't have any of these vinyl. Are people making the mistake of confusing the Royal Albert Hall Concert in the box with that of The Bootleg Series Volume 4, which is actually the Manchester show? It should be easy to tell the difference. Both are good performances, Manchester just a bit edgier. I think the intention was to record a live album at Royal Albert Hall, so Manchester was sort of a rehearsal. Watch, I'll get it wrong and Manchester was after on the tour. I didn't check the dates on the box. I think the sound quality of both shows is very good although there are several shows in the box that weren't professional quality. If you're a rabid Dylan fan the box makes sense as the price per disc is very good. I think it's Dylan's best songwriting and best band, although he's had a lot of great bands, but I could be happy simply with Bootleg Series Volume 4, Live 1966.

Coincidentally my Ipod Classic began needing much more frequent resets on a drive to and from the NY area this past weekend. I've never been able to have it go longer than about 200 tracks before it freezes, but only when it's restarted. This weekend it was freezing after tracks while playing, and at least 10 times in a 5 hour drive. I was thinking I need to replace it but I know when I bought it that Apple was discontinuing the product, which I think I've confirmed by shopping online. Are you folks saying you're going to buy one from a private seller? I think that otherwise your product choice is the Ipod Touch. Less memory, but a solid state hard drive that lasts longer.

That's interesting. I have a multichannel/stereo edition SACD of Kind of Blue that isn't a hybrid, but I know that a hybrid was released. Of course non-hybrid simply means it has no redbook layer. I checked discogs as completely as I could but couldn't find a multichannel only SACD of the album. There are stereo only versions of Kind of Blue in SACD. It's a simple enough matter to switch any SACD player between multichannel and stereo in my experience provided the disc has both mixes, which this one certainly must. Come to think of it, I can't recall any of my SACD's being multichannel only. A prize to the person who can name one, and if it's Kind of Blue, well, I'll eat my hat.

Something was happenin' and I didn't know what it was until I found out there was a Jackson in my house. Say hallelujah and give me that old time religion. Thanks for another great Roscoe Mitchell album, Nessa.

I got to see him at The Lilypad in Cambridge, Ma last December. The Vandermark 5 was one of the premier bands of this generation, now Rempis is out there carving a bit of a reputation for himself. His percussion ensemble recordings are something to behold. Non-stop energy. He's also in The Chicago Reed Quartet's Western Automatic and Keefe Jackson's Likely So ensembles. I recommend all of them.

It's About Time.

Very sorry to hear this. Like you, I contributed to the Kickstarter campaign for this terrific recording. I was lucky enough to attend the R.A.W. performance by the trio of Morris, Haynes, and Bern Nix and got my copies directly from Stephen Haynes. I don't know who's responsible for sending out the kickstarter copies but it sounds as though they're not doing a very good job. Best of luck to you. One strategy might be to contact Stephen directly via facebook.

Both of the Jerome Cooper albums on About Time are available from Dusty Groove, LP only. https://www.dustygroove.com/search.php?sf=jerome+cooper They don't carry a large inventory but they are reordering fairly regularly. I can also arrange to send them privately using paypal. Let me know if you're interested.

Nice tribute to Jerome Cooper. Did you not have a copy of Unpredictability of Predictability? The composition 'The Crouch Opinion' was a response to the review of Unpredictability of Predictability that Stanley wrote for The Village Voice. It was originally a piece for solo percussion that Jerome arranged for that particular album and sextet.

This was a blow. I heard from Joe Morris last week. I met Jerome through Jim Silverman when I was getting into producing recordings. He was managing Ahmed Abdullah and Jerome at the time, and I had already introduced myself to Ahmed and was about to produce a record with the group Abdullah. About Time wound up recording The Unpredictability of Predictability live at Soundscape, and we also produced the quintet recording Outer and Interactions. Both LP's are still in print and available from dusty groove. I think Jerome and Beth Cummins's daughter was born sometime in between the release of those two records, and Jerome was also touring and recording with Cecil Taylor at that point (It Is In the Brewing Luminous). I have never met either Beth or Levanah. Jerome was an inspiration to many musicians, I think most of his About Time albums were bought by musicians. Allan Chase of New England Conservatory likes to talk about learning from Jerome at Creative Music Studio in Woodstock and he tells all his graduate students to get those records. Joe Morris said on Facebook that Unpredictability has always been his favorite solo album. I miss Jerome, and I wish I had stayed closer to him and done more projects with him through the years. He was one of the first iconic avant garde musicians I met personally in the 1970's. Easy to get along with, funny and deep at the same time, always honest, always did what he said he would do. God rest his beautiful soul. He left us with some outstanding music. Chuck - please contact me about Jerome if you'd like to talk or if I can help with any info. All the best - Beth Cummins Hello Beth, So sorry for your loss. Please give my best to Levanah also. Alan Ringel And remember what Jerome said. 'Those aren't notes. They're tones.' Among many other things.

I got this directly from the label. It will never be close to my favorite Ornette album but it's a good record. The label looks musician owned, and one of their releases looks to be a solo percussion album which the artist claims is fairly unique in jazz or any discography. What can I say? They're young. They're unfamiliar with great records by Jerome Cooper, Andrew Cyrille, Milford Graves, Max Roach, to name just a few. They'll learn.

Where is the tab for ordering this as a compact disc on the website? I only see downloads and LP.

Ordering next week!! My copy just arrived . Same questionable design I regret to say as the earlier edition .All four discs detached from their foam posts . None damage as far as I can see. Disc 1 sounding excellent The packaging, if it hasn't been pointed out, is actually a little different and much worse than before. My first set arrived with all the discs secured in place on rubber posts. My second set arrived with the discs scattered about mixed with bits of foam that replaced the previously mentioned rubber. Two of the discs are scratched but look playable. Got them in the player now.

As usual for these complete album collection Sony boxes, the price per disc is terrific. But that's a side issue. This is an important release both because of the performer and the music. Charles Rosen, recently deceased as many of you know, was awarded I think it's called The Medal of Freedom by President Obama. If there had been one person you would want to ask any question about music, art, or literature during his lifetime it would have been Mr. Rosen. He was also an inveterate supporter, champion, and performer of contemporary/avant garde classical music, most notably the compositions of Elliott Carter. A good friend of mine of many years was an undergraduate student of Rosen's at Stoney Brook, and also a pianist. He enlightened me years ago and we saw Rosen regularly in a stuffy little library in the middle of the summer playing piano at the Rockport festival. We also attended the 100th birthday celebration for Elliott Carter at Tanglewood where Rosen was featured in several performances, most notably the concerto for piano and harpsichord where he played with Ursula Oppens. I haven't read any of his books, which is an omission on my part, but I did read his articles in NYReview of Books. I have to say that I wonder if his remark about Balzac was misunderstood. Perhaps he was impressed that someone these days was still reading Balzac besides him. Or maybe not. But you can bet he read Balzac and would never dismiss anything without knowing what he was dismissing. As for this box set, by all means grab a copy. My friend Matt has made several comments in advance of its release. First, that many of the recordings will be available for the first time on CD. Second, that the Debussy is 'historic'. And third, that the late Beethoven sonatas are played the best here of any available recordings. I've looked for Rosen's recordings on and off for years, and I will say that many of them are out of print and very pricey to hear. The ones I do have, principally Elliott Carter and Webern, are excellent.

I barely have time to catch up with all the new recordings Wadada has done. Nice to hear Jack DeJohnette in a somewhat more free musical environment, although that's no knock on everything else he does. The music puts me in mind of The Golden Quartet series, albeit with a second horn instead of keyboard. I need to backtrack to the duets with Moholo. I don't think I listened to that one enough. And Occupy the World is stunning.

Comprehension and appreciation of the music known as 12 tone, including Schoenberg Berg and Webern, is critical to understanding the development of contemporary Western classical music. And even then you have not gotten around to Cage, minimalism (e.g. Reich), maximalism (e.g. Babbitt), or Harry Partch. But anyway, both box sets of complete Webern are excellent and the DG is, if that is possiblle, more complete IIRC. Welcome to the XXth century.